My sole mode of personal transportation is my bicycle. I've never driven a car and I'm quite proud of it.
This blog is my place to rant and rave about cycling issues as I see them.

This is not a place for critics of integrated cycling - that conversation is over - segregation has no future - studies show it is not a safe or useful strategy, nor is it a healthy philosophy.

Friday, 30 March 2012

Bike to Work Day - Masturbation for Motorists.

On one day this May, thousands of motorists in cities throughout the US will dust off their badly neglected bikes, oil the rusty chain, pump up the tires, climb on and join together in the biggest one-day circle jerk in the cycling world. On their way to work, many of them (in some cities) will stop off at various vendor stations to pick up pre-purchased T-shirts that will proclaim their onanistic 'achievement' for everyone to see.

I'm talking about Bike to Work Day. On this day (the actual date varies by city), motorists who happen to own a bike can choose to test how it would be to use it to get to work. Those who do it will feel great, not because they've actually achieved anything, but because masturbation always feels great! The day after, and every work day thereafter until Bike to Work Day 2013, all of these wankers will prove my point by happily getting back in their trucks, SUVs, midsize sedans, compact hatchbacks, etc., content in the sure and certain knowledge that they've made a difference: that they've done their bit for cycling, health, environmentalism and whatever other goal they think cycling one day a year accomplishes.

The problem is, because they all get back in their automobiles the next day, they haven't done a damned thing to forward the cause of cycling. On the contrary, what they've done every year since the League of American Wheelmen instituted Bike to Work Day in 1956, is help to cement the idea that cycling is 'the other' - elitist, nutty, unrealistic, annoying, and most importantly for them, more dangerous, more sweaty and less comfortable than driving.

There are four big problems I see with Bike To Work Day:

1. It encourages those of us who cycle to work EVERY work day to become disillusioned by those who bike to work one day per year. We see these poseurs claiming to be cyclists for one day, and we know damned well that these folks are just doing it for show, or to feel good about themselves. In short, where do I go to get MY freaking 'Bike to Work YEAR' T-shirt?

2. It makes people think they're accomplishing something for cycling, health and the environment, whereas in reality they are not. It allows them to happily ignore cycling for 364 days, it allows them to happily be as unhealthy as anyone else for 364 days, it allows them to happily pollute just as much as anyone else for 364 days, while all the time thinking that the one day a year they devote to cycling makes a positive difference out of all proportion to the time they spend on it.

3. It inspires a reactionary push-back from people who see the event as a rejection of driving. The sudden increase in cyclists on the road - many of them people who are not used to riding a bike in traffic - sends all the wrong signals to motorists who (thanks to media stories about scofflaw cyclists) might already bear a grudge against us.

4. It encourages people to fear cycling. Yes, that's right! One day a year (plus whatever few fair weather weekend days they spend on bike paths) is not enough to allow people unused to regular road cycling to get comfortable riding in the road with traffic, so when they go back to driving the next day, their feeling of accomplishment has much more to do with overcoming fear and unease than it does with finding comfort on a bike. As a result, any belief they have that cycling is uncomfortable and dangerous will tend to grow, not subside.

It's one thing to have one day a year for wannabe cyclists to devote to the bicycle. It's quite another for these same folks to commit to real change. Real change requires a change in attitude that lasts more than a few hours during a feel-good self-love fest. It takes a full-on commitment, and that cannot happen unless people decide to operate or organize things so that Bike to Work Day is EVERY work day.

The more cycling advocates encourage people to think that change can be accomplished by spending one day a year on a bike, the harder it is for us to accomplish real change.

I found out last year, after having participated in Bike to Work Day for the first time (I even bought the T-shirt), that the worst day of the cycling year is the day after Bike to Work Day, when we who cycle every day get on our bikes for our daily commute and realize that all that hype was for nothing - yesterday's self-professed 'cyclists' are all back in their cages again, because in reality, that's where they want to be, because these folks are motorists, not cyclists.

As one contributor to a local paper here in Maryland said in response to an article about last year's event: "...How many of them would be out there in the rain or cold weather? This is like those people who pick up trash in the park for two hours and suddenly think they're environmentalists. "

So starting this year, I aim to protest Bike to Work Day. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet, but I am going to do it. Luckily my one day of protest is not going to require much commitment - just like the motorists who claim to be cyclists one day a year, all I need to do is devote 1/365th of every year to it. It should be a piece of cake, and just like Bike to Work Day, I expect it will accomplish nothing, because in the end, cyclists cycle, drivers drive, poseurs pose, and wankers... well, you get the picture.

When it was my responsibility to do such things, I quit participating/encouraging/organizing BTWD events because I saw it as counter-productive to utilitarian/vehicular cycling, while reinforcing almost everything wrong with US cycling policy. Its primary achievement seemed to be engendering fear in occasional cyclists and dedicated drivers alike.

About Me

I'm from Sheffield, Yorkshire. I lived my first 22 years in England. Between 1984 and 1986, I cycled 10,000 miles throughout Western Europe. I met my American wife in Austria in 1988 and moved to the USA in 1989. I've worked as a shop assistant, a draughtsman, an artist, a bartender, a picture framer, a writer and a genealogical researcher. My daughter and I are probably "The Silver Spring Cyclists" - the only people in town who commute on the bike every day through fair weather or foul: rain, snow, hot or cold. No matter what, we're out on our bikes.

Quotes on Cycling and Society

"When a cow follows the herd, it ends up at a slaughterhouse. When cyclists use bike facilities, they end up at an intersection, often with the same unhappy result as the cow. Use the road - it's safer!" - me again.

"Vehicular cycling techniques have not been tried and found difficult. They have been presumed difficult and not tried." - P.M. Summer, paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton

"If American bicycle advocacy leaders had championed the civil rights movement, the 'Dream' would have been reserved seating in the back of the bus." - Jack R. Taylor

"The task of the 'protected' bicycle facility is to hide collision participants from each other right up to the point of impact." - John Schubert

"Position on the road is by far the most important influence that a cyclist has over his safety. Indeed, the loss of this ability to influence the actions of others is one reason why road-side cycle tracks and shared footways increase danger at junctions. Many cyclists fail to position themselves properly because of their fear of traffic, yet it is this very fear that puts them most at risk. Encouraging unsafe behaviour by directing cyclists to more hazardous positions does nobodyany favours." - John Franklin

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so" - Mark Twain